


Ficlet Friday Ask: Star Trek Kirk Knows Kids

by LegoLock



Series: Ficlet Friday [57]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Child Care, Cute Kids, Death of a Civilization, Fluff, Gen, Other, Undisclosed Disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15396096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegoLock/pseuds/LegoLock
Summary: "Kirk being secretly awesome with kids! They find one of the colonies dead except for a little kid who's like 2 and has been alone for ages so they latch onto the first person who gives them attention. Which happens to be Kirk. No one on the Enterprise knows what to do with a kid and Kirk doesn't exactly have the galaxy's most parental personality so everyone's stunned when the kid latches on. He picks them up when they find him or lets them cling to his leg as he barks orders at the bridge."





	Ficlet Friday Ask: Star Trek Kirk Knows Kids

Kirk stared at the remains of what had once been a colony of some type. There was so little information about the planet and the inhabitants that even Spock hadn’t been able to turn up a name. It was just an unknown planet floating in the deep recesses of the universe, one which had clearly been a potential pick to colonize by some lifeforms. Whatever they had been was also lost.

The colony had been savagely attacked.

None were left alive. Not dead were left to be found. The colony had been gutted.

Kirk felt his throat constricting as he noticed the remains of a child’s toy being slowly buried by the gently blowing sands.

“Captain.” Spock’s voice drew Kirk from his thoughts, bringing the captain around to face his away team. Aside from Spock, it was just the usual red-shirted crew members Kirk brought along for numbers.

“Well, looks like nobody’s home. Doesn’t look like we’ll find the parts we need here.” Kirk shrugged, his solemn crew nodded as he started to call for a pick up. “Kirk to Enterprise–” A sharp chirp from a device on Spock’s belt stalled his call. Before he could ask what the beep meant, one of the crew pointed.

“What the hell was that?!”

“What?”

“There in the window! I saw something!”

Spock’s brow wrinkled a bit as Kirk and he turned to observe the window in question. They didn’t see anything. “Captain. I did detect lifeforms nearby…”

“Could have been a cat.” Kirk murmured, at the somewhat blank look he got from Spock, he sighed, “Never mind. Kirk to Enterprise, we have a potential lifeform down here, going to knock and see who’s home.”

With a hand on his phaser, Kirk led the way to the building in question. A simple enough home, really…lacking doors and windows. Most likely lost to the attack. Kirk paused at one side of the door, Spock at the other with a beeping device in his hands. They shared a quick glance, Spock nodded, and Kirk spun into the doorway–there in the corner of the small desolate room, was a small, young, child.

“Oh my…” The rest of what Kirk was saying faded on his lips as he took in the sight of the child huddled fearfully in the corner. He was thin and wild looking, but there was a tiny spark of hope in those dark, round, orbs. His skin was a mottled, light, blue and Kirk swore he saw a flick of a thir eyelid cross over as the child blinked up at the intruders. Clearly he was terrified.

Kirk’s phaser carefully tilted down at the floor. “Captain, I–”

“Sh, Spock, shut up!” Kirk hissed as he watched the kid eyeing all the strangers there staring at him. “Food.” Kirk urged as he knelt down, holding a hand out in expectation that something edible would find his hand. A ration bar did. Not exactly appetizing, but it would work, right? Kirk slowly held out the bar. “Hey there, hey, you hungry?” The child perked, but didn’t seem to understand what he was saying. So Kirk took a bite from the rationed bar, pulling a face, but quickly faking it. “Mm…yum…” Kirk offered the bar out again.

This time, the child moved closer, then closer, finally getting close enough to reach out and take the bar. And then, much to everyone’s surprise, he crawled right into Kirk’s arms!

Kirk hesitated, letting the kid get comfortable as he wrapped a careful pair of arms around the kid to pick him up. He didn’t seem to object, in fact he was just focused on eating. He didn’t seem to even notice that Kirk had picked him up. Or if he did, he didn’t mind.

“A child.” Spock spoke softly to the murmuring crew gathered around the doorway of the place and staring at the small child latched onto their captain.

Kirk stared down at the tiny kid, bright eyes full of fear and uncertainty stared back at him briefly. Whatever the little guy was, Kirk couldn’t say, but he was clearly extremely young to be alone. Had he been the only survivor of whatever had happened? Kirk could only wonder what it must have been like for a child so young to have to suddenly fend for himself.

“Captain…?”

“It’s fine…it’s just a kid.” Kirk assured as he carefully put the phaser away. “It’s okay, hey?” He murmured to the terrified child clinging to him as he gnawed on the ration bar like it was the first meal he’d had in ages.

One of the other crew members approached at a gentle wave from Kirk to try and take the child from him, but was rewarded with a terrifyingly high-pitched shriek that just about had them all on the ground with bleeding ears! Spock had the sense to move everyone back, which stopped the noise, thankfully.

Kirk, ears ringing, blinked several times to regain his wits as he stared down at the child once more. “Alright, alright, easy there. Come here…no need to shout, hey?”

Spock eased closer when the child seemed settled enough, “It would appear that he likes you…”

“You don’t say…” Kirk gently hefted the child in his arms, looking around a bit more before he eyed Spock, “No more lifeforms around?”

“No, Captain..”

“Right, well, I guess that means you’re coming with us, hm?” Kirk hummed as he held onto the child.

“Are you sure you can handle him, Captain? Perhaps once we get to the ship we could have one of the more…maternal crew members–”

“I can handle one kid, Spock, it’s fine.” He tapped his communicator again as he kept a hold on the child. “Kirk to Enterprise. We’ve got a kid coming back with us…”

* * *

Everyone on the bridge hadn’t been very certain what to make of Kirk with a small blueish child following on his heels. But the kid shrieked every time Kirk left him behind, so the captain didn’t have a choice but to keep him close by. Which suited him just fine, since he actually liked having the kid around. He was mostly non-vocal…aside from the screaming. But he seemed smart. And he was cute in the little captain outfit that someone in the crew decided would be funny to dress him in.

Kirk didn’t mind.

The kid, who most called Blue at this point, was standing behind Kirk’s leg as the captain stood at the bridge. Currently it had been about a week since they’d picked him up from the deserted planet, and they’d hardly been exploring the space very long before they found trouble…or rather…trouble had found them as usual.

But for all the shouting and sirens going off at, Blue was calm so long as he kept a hand on Kirk. And Kirk honestly kept a hand on him most of the time just to be sure the kid was doing okay. For the moment, they were just cruising through space, watching the screen as stars flickered by and planets came and went. There was no hurry after all, they were documenting space.

It was, perhaps, still surprising to see how well Kirk did with children. Scotty had even started a pool to see how long the relationship would take to fail. Needless to say…Scotty was not on the winning side.

Oddly enough, it was Spock who was the winner of the pool, not that he’d ever admit he’d played it.

Blue yawned gently, the tiny squeak making Kirk look down. “Hey, tired little buddy?” Blue nodded slowly, holding his arms up. Kirk obliged and picked Blue up. Cuddling him close so Blue could wrap his arms around his neck.

“Spock, you’ve got the con.” Kirk hummed as he slowly turned to take Blue down to medical where Bones liked to keep him when he napped. Bones was a bit of a softie…and Blue seemed to like the cynical man.

“Yes, Captain.” Spock replied as he moved to take the chair while Kirk left to tend the young boy.

“I had no idea the captain was so good with kids…” Someone murmured, Spock stared off at the closing door with a subtle smirk.


End file.
